Chapter 7
Link doesn’t need an introduction to know who lays curled beneath the hay.
It seems he certainly does. The eyes that stare back are young, if weary and disillusioned. A boy wiser beyond his years, but Link is enormously relieved to see it’s only from a lifetime of memories.
Link coaxes him out with soft words and reassurances of food. Unsurprisingly, the face that emerges is frightened and in shock. There’s both a question and suspicion in drawn eyebrows and pinched lips, but the bags under his eyes and just general tell-tale signs of exhaustion show the boy is desperate. He wants to survive, even if he has to take a chance on a stranger.
The boy doesn’t say who he is, though Link doesn’t expect him to. Ragged and filthy are not the words she would ever use to describe a young gerudo prince. Besides, even if she’d failed to recognise him initially, the red hair, golden eyes and dark-skin would have been a dead giveaway to an ancient heritage. It’s one Link is all too familiar with.
But he’s certainly not inclined to kill her at first sight, and Link finds that encouraging.
The boy doesn’t say he’s gerudo, of course. It’s unlikely the village would believe him even if he did. The gerudo are a far-flung, isolated race of warrior-people living in the desert. Not a one had been seen in this part of Hyrule for decades. More importantly, the gerudo are a race of warrior women. If the appearance of a gerudo woman is an almost impossibility, the appearance of a man is the stuff of legend.
After Link is finished feeding the boy, she drags him inside and dyes his hair with henna. Granted, she can’t do much about his skin colour or amber eyes, but it’s entirely possible to explain away. Dark-skinned hylians exist in the world. Amber eyes, though usual, are not unheard of. And he’s young enough that he can pass off his height as just being tall.
The boy is oddly amiable to the manhandling from a stranger. He touches newly darkened hair curiously as a timid smile emerges.
Later, Link tells her mother a sob story that makes the big-hearted woman burst into tears. The bald-faced lie is thin, but Link’s mother has always been highly gullible.
Link doesn’t like manipulating her mother, but it’s better than the alternative. The boy is still in fight or flight mode. Link instinctively knows should he sense even a hint of suspicion, a side-ways glance, and she’ll lose him. It would spell the end for them all.
And just like that, a red-eyed mother introduces a tall orphan boy named Gan to the village stables. The new stableboy is friendly, if softly-spoken, and quickly becomes a favourite of gossipy older women in the village. Even a few younger ones, Link notes with interest.
With luck, memories of a past life will stay buried. Link will change his fate if it kills her. It’s not like it’s been the first time.